Thursday, June 02, 2011

Dutch tourists

After lunch we had some time to kill before we could pick up our rental car, so we took a bus back to Fisherman's Wharf. It's the most touristy place in the city, which is probably why we enjoy hanging out there so much. Playing tourist, even in the city you live, gives you this perpetual feeling of vacation and who doesn't love vacation? Of course, the Dutchies are really on vacation and don't need to pretend they're tourists, they just are!

We enjoyed a little pit stop at Ghirardelli Square to get some free samples of chocolate in the Ghirardelli store. I'm not a big fan of Ghirardelli chocolate, it kind of tastes like Belgian chocolate, which is too sweet for me. But my sweet mother loves sweet Belgian chocolate and therefore also liked Ghirardelli. She's definitely taking some of their chocolate squares home with her.

We also got some real cupcakes (as opposed to my amateur cupcakes) from Kara's, because I can't let my mom leave the country without ever tasting a professional cupcake. Mine are made from mix boxes and way, way, way too sweet, Kara's cupcakes are just right. But apparently to my mom they all taste good, even mine :).

After our chocolate overdose, we resumed our touristy ways and my mom made some slightly intimidating new friends:

We already rode the famous cable car yesterday, but San Francisco has more special trains full of tourists, of course I'm talking about the F streetcars, that go all over the Embarcadero and Market. I always love taking that train (yeah I wasn't kidding when I said I love to play tourist) and of course I had to take the Dutchies on one too, especially since we still had valid Muni transfers.

This time we got to ride an Australian train with benches facing each other (like on Japanese subways) and with separate compartments, fun! We got off at the Ferry Building for one more picture with us acting as Dutch tourists, before we picked up our wheels at Hertz. Hello, Ford Escape! We're very happy to meet you :).

After fighting our way through San Francisco traffic (the only downside of driving) we picked Yasu up from school and found ourselves a Red Lobster restaurant (with the help of our trusty iPhones) which we could have never visited using public transportation. Why? Because Guido was craving crab (affordable, not the expensive ones on Fisherman Wharf) and because we really wanted exploit the fact that we had our own wheels now! The Dutchies treated us to this delicious dinner:

We have one more day of sightseeing in San Francisco (by car this time) ahead of us, before we head out on our first road trip on Friday!

New to your blog but I certainly enjoyed your post. I would love to see San Francisco so your pics are a lovely sneak peak! Where are you going on your road trip? The pic of you and your hubby is adorable! xx

Sherms, welcome to my blog and thanks for commenting! I reall appreciate it.

Once you make it to the States, you should definitely visit SF, it's worth it! Our road trip destinations: Napa, Lassen Volcanic National Park, Sacramento, Reno, Lake Tahoe, Salt Lake City, Bryce Canyon, Las Vegas, Death Valley National Park, and Yosemite National Park. Wow, that's a lot, I know, and I'm very much behind on blogging. But I'm determined to get it all on here!

The Loulogue= Louana + Travelogue. Just squeezed them together, and it's the travelogue/blog of Louana (people call me Lou) through the world and through life.